Greece's new finance minister, Yannis Stournaras has admitted that the country
is "off-track" to meet the conditions of its bail-out agreements
while his predecessor warned Athens would need three-years to get back on
track.

Newly sworn-in Finance Minister of Greece Yannis Stournaras looks on during a handover ceremony in the Finance Ministry in Athens on Thursday.Photo: EPA

Mr Stournaras, who was sworn in just hours before he met Greece's international paymasters yesterday, said the political uncertainty surrounding two general elections had hit the country's finances even more.

"The economy has gone through two difficult elections and the programme is off-track in some respects, and it is on track in others," he told reporters.

Evangelos Venizelos, the leader of Greece's Pasok party and former finance minister, said Greece needs a "realistic framework" and called for its bailout plan to run until 2017.

The estimate is far longer than the extensions that other Greek and European politicians have suggested. Leaders in the eurozone's northern core are opposed to granting an extension as the move would require billions of euros of extra support for Greece.

Greece needs its next €31.5bn (£25.1bn) instalment of international aid to avoid running out of money within the next few weeks. Officials from the troika - representatives from the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund - are in Athens to decide whether to grant the disbursement.

The decision is supposed to be dependent on whether Greece has stuck to the austerity targets set by the programme.

Mr Stournaras is under intense public pressure to renegotiate the tough austerity measures with the visiting delegation.

He warned that Greece had to make more cuts and reforms before it could expect its international creditors to fund an extension of the bail-out agreement. "We can't ask for anything from our creditors before we get it back on course," he told reporters.

After the first day of the visit, Mr Stournaras joked that he had been warned to expect a tough time from his counterparts at his first eurozone finance ministers meeting next week.

"The troika people told me jokingly that I'm not going to have a good time at the Eurogroup on Monday," he said. "I told them I'm aware of that."

Mr Stournaras will present his plans for the Greek economy to parliament today.

Antonis Samaras, Greece's new prime minister, said: "The Greek government is determined to proceed more effectively towards fiscal adjustment, to speed up structural reforms so that the economy recovers."